Friday, March 30, 2012

Books containing movie screenplays, and, more importantly, story
board artwork, were starting to hit the book stores back in 1977. This inspired
me to fill up a few 60 page spiral notebooks with "first person
views" of the first three levels to my mega-dungeon, The Tower of Terror.

This illustration
device was put to good use on some of the more famous modules (I'm looking at
you 'Tomb of Horrors' and 'Expedition to the Barrier Peaks') which included a
separate book of images that showed the players what was inside of the hallways
and chambers. But I rendered everything.
You'd flip through the book, and it's be a 30 foot long hallway for a few
pages, but then, you'd turn the page, and it'd be a monster, (or a pit trap, or
a set of doors at the end of the hall, or whatever). You'd roll some dice,
fight the monster, avoid the trap, decide which door to take etc. It was
"Pick a Path" meets "Doom" the video game. It was an
upgrade from the paper/pencil tank wars we used to play before class.*

I was swayed by
my pals to take it into middle school. It was a minor hit with the gang, until
it was confiscated by the teacher and never seen again.

The teacher
probably thought she was doing my parents a favor. I suspect the dead skeletons
on the floor, and the attacking monsters (zombie owl bears, werewolves, green
slime covered doorways and more) didn't help my case. In my defense, there were
jewels, books and magic swords in there. So, it wasn't all torture chambers and
lockedprisons
... Wait a minute ...Okay, there was a torture chamber, and a set of prisons.
What did they expect? I just read The Man In the Iron Mask for my 3rd period English
class (an assigned book report). At least I absorbed the material (and it
spurred me on into a huge Alexander Dumas kick: Count of Monte Cristo, Three
Musketeers, and his plays).

We tried building a working R2-D2 droid, and instead learned how
to splice radio wires for a low tech version of 'surround sound'. The Odyssey,
the first home video game console/computer, came out back in 1972. We didn’t
have that, but my next door neighbors had the Pong/Breakout video game console
in 1976-77. There were portable synthesizers, and smaller guitar amplifiers, large
radios known as “boom boxes”, and the LATEST HITS mixed-tapes and albums, with sound effects, and cheap
VCR film cassettes were released to a new form of shopping center, called “The
Mall”.

It was the dawn of the home video entertainment systems. Pong
consoles, Atari, (and later, VCR) machines were around, and they gave you new
ways to spend hours in front of the television. We'd record their sound effects
off the TV and 'warp' them with a boom box we'd hook up to the stereo. We made
action flick trailers, music videos and experimental art films. We built
elaborate movie sets in our basements, attics, garages, and backyards. The 'art
of noisemaking' and ‘housetrashing’ my dad would say. If you didn't want to
watch that re-run of 'The Incredible Hulk' or 'Hogan's Heroes', you could just
turn it channel 3 and watch the movie scenes we just shot. It was all
"hands on experience".

What did we do before we had the computers of today? We were
dreaming up ways to build computers.

*(If you are unfamiliar with this game, it went like this: You'd
get a piece of notebook paper, lay it down on a table, and you and your buddy
would draw 10 to 20 tanks on opposite ends of the page. Then you'd take turns
drawing 10 dashes towards the other player, simulating tank movements. Then
you'd hold the pencil by the eraser and attempt to hit your opponent's tanks,
with one stroke. Easier said than done. The first to destroy all of his
opponent's tanks was the winner. Eventually, the tank vs. tank mechanics
evolved into plane vs. plane, then UFO vs. UFO (and later, vampire vs. mummy, soldiers
vs. aliens etc). When the arcades started opening up around town, with games
like "Space Invaders", “Defender”, "Missile Command",
"Asteroids", and of course, "Pac-Man", we never looked
back).

WotC's re-release of Gary Gygax's Advanced D+D's Dungeon Master's
Guide has psychologically shifted my focus back to my early daysof gaming. Do I have one word to sum up the
bizarre, (yet strangely inventive), days over summer vacations and long
Christmas Holidays, spent knee deep in dice throwing mind games ? No, not
really. Nostalgic doesn't cut it. A while back, I went to a convention for pop
culture artifacts: classic toys, collector cards, action figures, board games,
movie posters, and display shelves filled with memorabilia from my childhood. It
was like time traveling, but through the power of memories, instead of a time
machine. Although one name comes to mind every so often: Christopher
Livingston.*

I'm the notorious middle child of five in my family, and, growing
up, we usually moved into neighborhoods with other large families; each with
wildly different family values. So, we'd blend in with our various counterparts
in ages. Middle kids "teaming up" together has always come with a
weird price (vandalism, pyromania, shop lifting, and ill conceived romances,
that went spectacularly bad, to name a few). I should say it was also some of
the most exhilarating and action-packed times in my life (re-enacting scenes
from the summer movies of 1975 to 1983: The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders
of the Lost Ark, and Martial Art action flicks etc).

Dressed as rebel pilot, or as Han Solo, (depending on the day) with Patricia, an old friend of the family.

It wasn't long before I was involved with the older kids, and
their crazy life experiences. Somebody was always 'lip synching', singing, or
playing stuff off of the radio (ACDC to the Beatles, to Led Zepplin to Queen,
to Tchaikovsky to Verdi). And, through my older sibling's connections, I spent
many summer nights watching and playing with the older girls (chasing each
other around the nearby fields, woods, and basketball courts). I heard the
early Steve Martin and George Carlin albums on my friend's older brother's
record player. If it sounds like a wonderful life, it's because I'm editing out
all the humiliating and ambivalent hours I wasted. Those terrible details and
bad decisions are for the novel, I'll write in the nextlife.

In ninth grade I met up with Chris. His family lived in 'the nice
part' of the neighborhood- you'd have to hike up four long hilly streets to get
there-where doctors and lawyers lived in large houses around lush arboreal cul
de sacs. He was in the 11th grade and we were both in the chess club. We played
a few games (he knew my older brother), but I lost interest and dropped out a
month later.

That fall, I was invited to play a D+D game, up at Chris' house,
(held down in the basement, which had been converted into a carpeted covered
'game room' with comfortable chairs, and a 10' long wooden table, with eight to
ten kids sitting around it, from ages 10 to 17 years old). The room was loaded
to the brim with board games, and D+D paraphernalia, (miniatures, models, and
RPG magazines, sitting on "built in wall shelves" and inside wooden
cabinets) next to a ping pong table, a TV set with an Atari console, a stereo
counter, and more. There was a set of stairs that lead up to the outside
backyard, where everybody would park their bikes.

The intrepid (yet camera shy) players gather before the game begins.

I discovered the Basic and Expert sets back in the seventh grade
(1978). So did a lot of the boys I knew (Monsters and half naked ladies. What's
not to like?) Chris had been around for the first wave with Dr. Holmes and the
early low print runs of mini adventures. By 1981 he had all of the TSR modules
and supplemental books, and he would sit at the head of the table and run the
games like a tournament
match. He'd set up the situation, (from behind the module's cover),
and point to each person around the table and say, "You have 10 seconds to
tell me what you're doing. Go!" Then he'd roll some fake dice, and start
down the line: "You hear this…” and “You spot that...” and “You think you
see something, but it's really just…You,
when you stubbed your foot on a loose stone...” and “You are hungry,” and “you
are..." etc. The older kids would have a comical reaction moment, usually
brought on by the younger kid's shock, surprise, or disappointment (oh the
disappointment) at the turn of events.

Chris had to be a referee first
and a story teller second.
He'd move you through a game that didn't last more than 2 hours (the intrusion
factor in larger families is pretty high). I could only make it to a half a
dozen gaming sessions, but they were fun. Unfortunately, three feet of snow
made the hikes less appealing, and more treacherous. He was one of the few guys
I knew who could actually play the game.

He went off to college, and by that time, I was running my own
games, with a couple of friends after school and kids closer to home (expanding
into Boot Hill, Gamma World, and Top Secret- we played A LOT of Top Secret). I
hope to bring some of that quirky, unpredictable energy back when you get one
of our games in the mail. Time travel via memory banks. Let's call it "Shockstalgia".

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Setting: James Dugan's* dining room with three other 12 year
olds. James informs I've just randomly rolled up my first Advanced D+D
character: a half-orc.

Action: Forget everything you know about orcs now-a-days. The
half-orc in the Player's Hand Book wasn't exactly the "go to guy" for
character generation. The fantasy adventure game that builds a magic land of
swords and sorcery could randomly turn one of the players into a monster you've
killed countless times, back in the Basic / Expert Games. Nobody 'played' the
half-orc. Not on purpose. Everybody wanted to be Gandalf, Aragorn, or Legolas
(or one of the stars from the movie, Excalibur), which made for a strange
experience around the table, with nobody (except James, who owned the books)
having seen the PHB picture of a half-orc before that night.

TAKE THE GOOD
WITH THE BAD...AND THE UGLY

The upside was I also rolled my first, officially corroborated,
straight 18 Strength roll (with the percentage bonus and everything) that
night. We chewed up a lot of time with character generation, but eventually we
found an abandoned castle, fought off a few wolves, and I battled 2 skeletons
before falling into a spiked pit trap: most of it determined by James through
random die rolls (some behind the screen, some not). That's how he DM’d, and
since he was the only one with the DMG, we figured that's how you played
Advanced D+D. Later, I learned he determined everything
by random die rolls. That's how I got the half-orc in the first place.

The Take Away: I
out-lasted everybody but the fighter (who was quickly killed by another
skeleton down the hall). So, even though we didn't make it out of the first
level, we still had fun. What kind I say? The game builds character.

*(For legal purposes, not his real name. And the above picture is from the 1978 Player's Handbook by Gary Gygax, pg. 18. Trademarked by TSR/ Wizards of the Coast, 2012).

Sunday, March 18, 2012

When it comes to strange dice and saving throws, you're an expert.
And if it involves arrows of
slaying, or an intelligent sword's ego score, you're in the know.
But have you heard about the Sherlock Holmes adventure set on an asteroid
station run by Dr. Doom? Or the one with top secret agents infiltrating a ring
of Los Angeles car thieves only to discover that JFK's assassination was
ordered by Jackie-O and a "star chamber" made up of war driven
generals? Well, prepare to be in the loop. Over the next few months, Jason and I are
introducing you to a new world of role playing games, each one with a personal
touch as unique and mind blowing as the next. Because when you live in a world
where an evil wizard is turned into a devious (yet "charming")
Hippogriff with a taste for human flesh, and a fast-running, undead minotaur
hunts down your players in a magic cave with no exits, it's time to turn off
your screens, and start rolling some "to hit" scores.

In the next few months, Underworld Ink will release a series of
mini-adventures. We hope these games will provide you with hours of fun, which
could either save the hobby as we know it - or be another sign that the
Apocalypse is imminent. One or the other. It could go either way.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Hey everybody, welcome to my blog. Before I stamp your ticket to
hilarious fun, there are a few important announcements.

First: my life story. There's been a lot of weirdness in my life-
including a couple of automobile accidents in my formative years (you've got to
expect that growing up on the rainy streets of Seattle), summer trips to the
Santa Cruz Boardwalk (in the early 1970's, before legal restrictions on
amusement parks, you literally risked your life on those rides), and a handful
of cross country trips (with stops into the sexual freedom loving culture of
San Francisco, CA and the drug loving culture of Austin, TX...or is that the
other way around? I can't remember), and finally ending up in Northwestern
Pennsylvania (a great place if you like trees, snow, and abandoned factories).
I've worked as a security guard for a movie company (and background extra) and
at just about every dead end job you can name: paper boy, stock boy,
dishwasher, baker, prep chef, janitor, councilor (for the deranged), and as a
cafeteria worker for a private school. In rock-n-roll bands, I was the drummer.

Secondly, I've been drawing, writing and making movies from the
time I could legibly print my name (say, first grade). Just so we're clear:
These "projects" were for fun (and to meet girls). I made little or
no money from any of these ventures. Nor do I have any formal ties to help anyone
to get into "the biz". These "projects" were designed to
get myfoot in the door, but I
was always at the wrong address.

Those of you searching for in-depth analysis about pop culture and
ancient mythology; I'll be featuring plenty of random thoughts, incoherent
ideas, mistaken conclusions, flawed understandings and weird rants. I've
written some plays, experimented with radio comedy (The Beatnik Spy Guys), and
created half a dozen Halloween costumes (including a Haunted House with working
lights, ghost sounds and more). I'm a father, a smoker, a drinker, and I'll
probably be dead before I'm fifty. I've owned dogs, cats, birds, fish, gerbils,
hamsters, rabbits, ferrets, amphibians, and a there was that year when I fed
live crickets to a monitor lizard.

Lastly, a few of you may have 'looked me up' in an effort to
'track me down'. You found me. Mythellaneous Conjurings was primarily built to
sell my gaming fanzines, and I'm sending you this semi famous quote from Alan
Moore and Dave Gibbons: "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here
with you. You're locked up in here
with me".
(Rorschach from Watchmen, issue 6, pg. 13, 1986-1987, Trademarked and owned by
DC Comics 2012).

That's about it. Be safe, and take care of yourselves. Remember, it's one nation under CCTV. Let the fun begin !